Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

She is the wife of a millionaire but still lives into daily adventure. Money can bring complacency and detachment from the the common life of us all, but this is not the case of Lynn Miller who is following the daily adventure of her husband, Mark Jackson, one of the most successful real estate entrepreneurs of our times in the US. A man that I have come to know in an unexpected way but that has already changed the way I am conducting my business and the scale at which I am planning to run it.

As I found out somebody who cares to achieve my very objective: create a bridge between cultures and bring together people who have very different habits, languages and personal situations, but who can have a very clear advantage, also economic advantage, for teaming up together across the ocean.

Mark and Lynn are right now headed to Italy where we will meet together a group of major investors who are looking to do business in the US, and I thank Mark for having taken the challenge and for having even volunteered to learn Italian! Can you imagine it

I am a firm believer that if we are going to make it all we need to cooperate amongst each other. America needs the help of Europe and Europe still needs the help of America.

Lynn recounts in this short interview which I have also translated for Italian viewers, how she and her husband have made it a lifestyle to make business everywhere they go and take joy out of it.

I think this message is very important, more important than you might think. America needs to open up and Lynn and Mark Jackson are already showing how to do it.

P.S. I made this interview on the fly at the Miami airport, catching Lynn and Mark while on their way back from a cruise to Nassau during which they had trained their key students on how to look for properties from a ship! You can hear Mark’s voice while he shooting the video

In every journey we need a crew that helps us steering our boat and keep the sails to the wind. I have friend and collaborators, but my personal crew that you’ll see in many videos are my twin kids. There is a very peculiar story that bonds us and that will keep our lives intertwined no matter the direction they will take. These first 10 years with them taught me many things, they have been my personal coaches as well as my best “product”.

For some years I have been alone with them, they were very tough years where I barely had time to tend to my job and keep the house going, while raising these two splendid beings. I had been very successful in my career before their arrival, but a sudden stop ensued when I found myself basically alone with them, two little creatures that needed all my love and attention. I remember the very early days when I woke up during the night to feed them (14 “meals” a day the two combined!) But they were sweet and cooperative since the very beginning and we came a long way together.

I felt like my career had stopped there, but now I realize that I had simply abandoned a path that was leading nowhere and I was beginning a total new path that was leading me toward a totally new condition and adventure. Today I am here in the United State and I am building my own enterprise. Far gone are the days when I had a boss to obey or when I was not in full control of my future. I am here with my kids and I am working for them and for my beautiful and brilliant new wife, and we’ll make a difference because we want to and we are a very close knit team.

Here I have found many friends and I have found out again that to achieve whatever objective it takes a group, a group that breeds love and understanding and at the same time gives you the tools to make it as an entrepreneur. I found such a group in TWBAOLINE lead by Chris Krimitsos. And I just want to quote a part of a personal message I got from him yesterday and which describes the goals of the organization:

We will make people achieve the greatest of heights and we will make their souls soar like Eagles.

We have a mission and a purpose the Internet is the subject but the message is love and camaraderie for each other!

We will travel the corners of the modern world with the secret message we bring love, compassion, drive and determination!

What a gift to inspire people who are waiting for the right leadership to inspire them!!!

I leave with his words. Dream your new future, live your new present. Join us

Commodore Black and its crew

I know this post won’t make me more popular, but I would be very remiss if I didn’t point out something that in my belief is hindering the capability of some US investors and professionals to deal with international clients. When I first arrived here in the US about seven months ago, I noticed a very peculiar behavior that is not common in Europe and that baffled me.

Many times people would come to me telling they had the final solution about something and that it was the real thing, so I would retain them, a lawyer or a CPA for example, or I would buy their course or product or whatever, for immediately finding out a series of clauses in the service agreement contract that would negate any usefulness of the product or service being rendered. I understand that it is advisable to put some kind of disclaimer for legal purposes, but I believe this is greatly overdone to the point that some people refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever about the service or product they provide and for which they want to be paid. For example, the first CPA I retained had the final solution as far as tax strategy was concerned. He had been suggested to me by a “reliable” source. Too bad it took me 3 months to finally get a business plan worked out and then he would give no formal endorsement to it whatsoever.

A real estate guru stated he had the complete package for getting to work on his particular acquisition strategy, too bad that all the legal forms had a disclaimer that required me to review them with a local lawyer who found most of them inadequate, but who wouldn’t otherwise produce reliable alternatives. Another lawyer advertised he had all the paperwork for setting up a company with no legal expenses, and then on the package there was a big disclaimer stating that such was only “education material” and that one should retain an attorney to check them out.

I am not saying that everybody is like that, fortunately it isn’t, but I see more and more a tendency of shying away completely from taking responsibility with the excuse of legal liability protection. Eventually one cannot blame people for becoming cynical or for making mistakes, since valid support is so difficult to find even when it is not only promised but also paid for.

When dealing with an international investor all of this cannot happen. One cannot expect somebody who is on another continent to do due diligence, to get proper counsel and to basically do the work that we should do here on his behalf. I find that real estate investors also often err on the side of patching things up. Just lately I was offered a “turn key” package, homes that were ready to go, and it “turned” out that the investor offering it had not even inspected them. He expected the buyer to do his due diligence. Total, honest and responsible service is the answer if one wants to really deal with investors overseas. Then everything flows well.

Roberto Mazzoni

When dealing with international buyers purchasing US real estate I see that sometimes the issue of credit history comes up. People wonder how can it be possible that somebody with no credit score at all can get a loan from a US bank while a US citizen maybe can’t. The fact is that it has become hard for all, foreigners and residents, but as far as foreigners are concerned some US banks have pre-defined programs that allow international buyers to get a loan provided they can come up with 30% of down-payment, which is absolutely normal for an European buyer.

In  fact 30% is the usual down-payment that is required out of most European home buyers when they get a loan in their own country. In addition to that the US bank requires to demonstrate the availability of assets and income enough to cover the monthly payments, which should not be higher that the 30% of the overall net monthly income. And again many European buyers qualify also on that. Once these two key factors are established, banks can lend with no previous credit history.

Now this can vary greatly from state to state since banks have really tightened up on new loans in some areas of the US, but this again does not eliminate international buyers from the picture because they can still get a loan in their own country and buy here.

In that case the mortgage would be for example on an Italian property and the cash would be used to buy a US property. Or again, with the falling market values and especially with the growth in number of bank repossessed properties, ona can often buy cash using some spare money they have in their account or in some lower return investment.

Italy and other European countries have gone through two world wars. My parents were actually starving at some point in time and my mother was due to be shot by the nazis because of her partisan affiliation. She escaped it because the execution had been scheduled after Apri 25^th, when the allied armies and the partisans freed the country.

We have all been grown up with the culture of saving and having a reserve for worse time because we know that we cannot rely on anybody, much less the state, to provide for us.

This cultural financial divide makes it possible today for any average European family to have enough money in reserve to be able to make investments. That is very cherished money, though, so they must be convinced that it is really a very good investment.

Roberto Mazzoni

Sometimes we look for the coolest trick or technology, or the hidden secret that will increase our sales and we simply forget or lose sight of the obvious things that are right in front of us and that seem so plain and simple as to be irrelevant. Sometimes we just don’t see them although they arew right in front our faces, other times we believe that everybody else is seeing them too and therefore we should not take action with them since nobody does.

Here you will find, many times, the “hidden secret” that will make you jump forward ahead of everybody else. It is the “everybody knows” that kills you bud!

I want to share a real life experience and some real world observation to drive my point home. I am dealing with International real estate and therefore I deal with people who live in different countries and who sometimes speak different languages. Beware the two different languages could both be English

Read the rest of this entry »